Wife prepares for Three Peaks Challenge as tribute to husband

A WIDOW is leading a team of friends on a fundraising climbing challenge up three mountains in memory of her husband.

Michelle O'Shea-Sandwith and a group of friends have been set the task of scaling Ben Nevis, Scafell and Snowdon in the space of 24 hours.

They will be raising money for the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research charity as a tribute to Michelle's husband Karl Sandwith, who died from Acute Myeloid Leukaemia two years ago.

Five of the team, including Michelle, will be pulling on their hiking boots and climbing each of the three mountains, with another two members taking it in turns on driving duty to ferry them round the country on the way to the next peak.

Michelle said: "A month ago we went up to Snowdon one Sunday to have a go at climbing it, and that's the only bit of training we've done.

"I did my back in so I haven't been able to do any training.

"None of us have done any hillwalking. We're fairly untrained for this one in comparison to last year, when we cycled from John O'Groats to Lands End, but we're not unfit.

"We're hoping we've got some good weather and the traffic's good to us. The Commonwealth Games will be on so we hope there isn't too much traffic around.

"We've given ourselves five hours to do Ben Nevis, five hours for Scafell and four for Snowdon."

The 38-year-old air cabin crew member from Old Amersham added: "My target was £1,000, so we've exceeded that so far already. It would be nice to get up to £2,000."

The challenge will start at Ben Nevis at 5pm on July 31 and the team will finish the following day, the anniversary of Karl's death.

He and Michelle married on the Hillingdon Hospital ward where he received treatment three weeks before he died. The couple were nicknamed Team SOS after their surnames by nursing staff at the hospital.

To donate to the team go to www.justgiving.com/michelleoshea-sandwith.